Overwatch cheat maker ordered to pay $8.6 million in damages to Blizzard

A California court has told Bossland to pay for 42,818 counts of copyright infringement.

Last summer, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against German cheat programme maker Bossland for "copyright infringement, unfair competition and violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision". Last month, we learned that the Overwatch developer was seeking upwards of $8.5 million (around £6.83 million) in damages, despite Bossland's resistance, and now it appears a California court has ordered the latter to pay $8.6 million.

As reported by Torrentfreak (via the BBC), Blizzard argued that Bossland had "reverse-engineered and otherwise altered its games without permission". While attempting to have the case dismissed, Bossland did not defend itself in court but was nevertheless found guilty of 42,818 counts of copyright infringement—a case which follows similar court rulings in the UK and Germany. According to Torrentfreak, Bossland also faces around $177,000 in legal costs beyond the substantial court-ordered charge.

Despite the ruling, the BBC reports that the Bossland website is still active—and still boasting the tagline "botting is not against any law"—however, having tried to access it just now, UK browsers are met with the following message:

"On 16th March 2017, Bossland GmbH, and its directors Mr Zwetan Letschew and Mr Patrick Kirk admitted, in and for the purposes of proceedings before the High Court of England and Wales, that the sale of its software which it sells as Honorbuddy, Gatherbuddy, Demonbuddy, Hearthbuddy, Stormbuddy and Watchover Tyrant, to any person resident in the United Kingdom, constitutes an infringement of Blizzard’s intellectual property rights and an inducement to players of Blizzard’s games to breach their agreements with Blizzard.

"Accordingly, Bossland and its directors are no longer permitted to advertise or offer for sale such software to UK residents."